Covering a provincial budget while cut off from the outside world

This article is part of the Star’s trust initiative, where, every week, we take readers behind the scenes of our journalism. This week, we look at how the Star covered the recent Ontario budget while cut off from the outside world.

Readers will often come across the word “lockup” in media coverage of provincial and federal budgets, but it’s a term that is rarely explained.

In essence, a budget lockup is the government’s way of providing journalists with details in advance of the document becoming public when the Minister of Finance speaks to the House later that day, usually around 4 p.m. The idea is to give journalists time to review the budget, ask questions of bureaucrats, and write their stories before the embargo is lifted.

But here’s the catch. Because budgets contain information that could influence the financial markets, at least in theory, no details can be made public until after the markets close. That means no communication with people outside once the lockup begins.

This week we sat down with Queen’s Park Bureau Chief Robert Benzie to find out what it’s like inside the lockup and how journalists deal with the challenges of reporting on the budget’s contents — which impact all Ontarians — without the benefit of contact with the outside world.

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This year’s budget document is over 300 pages. Given the huge amount of information it contains, how do you choose which aspects will be most relevant to readers?

While we have a budget sked before we enter the lockup, it evolves during the day. The Star’s Queen’s Park Bureau as well as beat reporters, editorial writers, and columnists are also part of our contingent. We annually enlist the assistance of a Scotiabank economist who helps us in deciphering the sometimes impenetrable numbers in the massive document. The first thing I do every year is read the finance minister’s speech to the Legislature, where we glean the themes of the budget. I bring my noise-cancelling headphones and a playlist of jazz pianist Bill Evans and repair to a quiet corner to read it closely. I am looking both for information and compelling quotes for the main budget story. That’s the overview of our coverage and contains elements that will be explored more deeply in the various sidebars. If it’s interesting enough to be noteworthy to each other it’s probably going to be useful information for Star readers.

Are there any budget lockups that were particularly memorable for you in your nearly 18 years of covering provincial politics?

Probably the most eventful budget of the approximately 30 federal and provincial lockups I have been at was in May 2014. There was a minority Liberal government at the time so Premier Kathleen Wynne needed support from either Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives or Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats. While we knew the Conservatives would not back the Liberals’ fiscal plan, the NDP had propped up the minority Liberals in the 2012 and 2013 budgets. But in 2014, we learned — after getting into the lockup — that Horwath was skipping the traditional opposition leaders’ press conferences because the New Democrats were going to vote against the budget. That meant we were having an election. Luckily, our colleagues who had not yet entered the lockup knew this so that message could get to the Star newsroom. But we were marooned all day in an essentially meaningless lockup knowing we were being plunged into an election.

Given that you are forbidden to talk to anyone outside the lockup, can you give us a sense of how it works and who you can talk to?

We have the entire day to study the budget and have press conferences with the finance minister and the opposition leaders in the lockup. That is for the stories we publish when the embargo is lifted after the minister rises to address the Legislature. There are no phones allowed in the lockup so we are cut off from the outside world. We can query Ministry of Finance bureaucrats about aspects of the budget, but only on a not-for-attribution basis. All political questions are directed to politicians. They turn on the Wi-Fi at 4 p.m. so we can file our stories, but until then we are in an Internet-free Twilight Zone.

What’s it like in there? Is it utter chaos? Coffee cups everywhere? Do you talk to other media or does everyone keep to themselves?

There are around 150 journalists from nearly every major newspaper, wire service, TV network, radio station, and online outlet in the province. Each news organization has its own assigned table with its logo on it, equipped with electrical power bars and microphones for the press conferences. All of the budget documents and news releases are placed on your chair before you arrive at 8 a.m. It’s a very social place — it can be like old home week catching up with colleagues from different media outlets — but everyone is busy and has work to do so it’s seldom too distracting. Usually a hot meal is served — lasagna and roasted chicken are past favourites. There is lots of coffee and tea to keep us awake and large carafes of refreshing cucumber and lemon-infused water to keep us hydrated.